Hello friends! First of all I would like to apologize for waiting so long to write this blog, but better late than never!
My squad has been in South Africa since the beginning of December and we are now three days into Month Six!!! My Team (Team Zion) and Team Kids Out Back are both living and doing ministry in Jeffrey’s Bay! We spend our days volunteering at horse farms, construction sites, local bakeries, teaching high school JOT (Jesus Our Teacher) classes, helping out in a preschool, Monday night support group, prison ministry, baby clinic and prayer walking!
Our two teams keep pretty busy here in JBay, but one of the finer luxuries of Jefferey’s is that our house is across the street from the beach! There are some really cool things happening in my life so Id really like to share some of my favorite memories from my time in South Africa so far!
Christmas Eve: Our two teams walked to a shanty town near our house to offer prayer to people who are shackled to the chains of drugs and alcohol. We talked and invited them to church the next day. We were astonished to see how open and needy people where for prayer and how excited they where to have people praying over them. Also that night I made a homemade pumpkin pie out of a real pumpkin and then almost caught it on fire.
Christmas Day: My teammate, Britt, and I woke up early to watch the sunrise on the beach, then the team opened our “stockings” and went to church. After church we went to a family lunch with both hosts families and teams, followed by coming home opening our secret Santa gifts and drinking chai lattes! Having a Christmas without all of the mess of traditions and distractions from what the real meaning of Christmas was incredibly eye opening and far more enjoyable than usual Christmas!
Cape Town: The two teams from JBay decided to make the 9 hour van ride to Cape Town for New Years Eve, in CT we went sight seeing all around the peninsula, saw some ostriches, got bit by some ostriches, hiked Table Mountain, saw the Penguin Beach, watched our friends (try) to surf on the Atlantic side, took trains with beautiful views of the ocean, and went to the water front to watch fire works at midnight! overall the five days in Cape Town where packed and we were very relieved to be back in JBAY
Super Feedback: Feedback is something that all world race teams do, it consists of giving and receiving encouraging and constructive feedback. If done correctly, teams will grow individually and as team by calling each other out and calling each other higher! Our team decided to sit down once a week and have super feedback, this is when one person on the team is on the hot seat and they receive both constructive and encouraging feedback from all 5 members of the team. Our team took this and turned it into listening prayer for each other and we have seem so much fruit and growth from. Super feed back has been one of the greatest things that ever happened to my team.
Cave Day: Our two teams and our host families took one of our off days and drove two hours through the bush to get to a hidden cave on the beach. We spent the day climbing rocks, swimming in tide pools and following random paths to beaches! We ate a South African favorite, Braii (a lot like bbq), we also got attacked by ants during a pit stop.
Victory Church: Our teams attend Victory Church every Sunday where we get to experience an English message and worship! Our Pastor has been teaching about focus and higher vantage points! I cant describe how good it feels to have a church community after three months of Thai and Khmer sermons!
Debrief: Last week our squad met up in Port Elizabeth to relax and catch up before we started the last month of Africa! I was so happy to see everyone from Cape Town and to have rest from a tightly packed schedule. God spoke to me about His words and revealed Himself to me in new ways! We had worship every night and our lovely Squad leaders and Squad mentors and Squad Coaches share with us what the Lord has put on their heart! I left full of rest and excited about our last month in Africa!
All in all, Africa is treating me very well, with five days of full ministry and off days at church and the beach, life couldn’t be getting much better for me! Our squad flies out of JoBurg on March 3rd and arrive in Nicaragua on March 4th, and then we have a week of PVT which is where our parents fly out to see us and do ministry with us! Also, turn 19 that week! There is so much to look forward to!
I love you all dearly, KJ
